Will it take a Constitutional crisis?

I found myself wondering during the fiscal cliff negotiations — who made this deal? Conservatives said to the president last year, if you don’t reduce spending, we’re going to give you everything you want. We will cut defense and raise taxes across the board.

Our leaders on the right probably thought the president wouldn’t want to raise taxes and hurt the economy in its current fragile state. Or, they thought he wouldn’t want to cut defense and reduce our ability to project power in the world. What the Republican party hasn’t figured out yet is that this president doesn’t care about the economic future of this country. He doesn’t care if our stature and military capability is diminished or destroyed altogether. He is pursuing a whole different agenda.

It is painfully clear that Barack Obama has no intention of erasing or even diminishing annual budget deficits. He has no intention of paying down the national debt. On the contrary — the fiscal cliff deal increased the budget deficit after raising taxes $620 billing by adding more spending.

There is a saying on Wall Street that interest rates are low until they are not any more. The Federal Reserve is buying approximately 61 percent of the sovereign debt that we float every year. They can’t grow their balance sheet forever by printing money. We are paying an artificially low-interest rate in the low single digits. If we have a credit market shock, this could easily be raised to the mid teens. We would have no feasible means to service our debt at that level.

Our fiscal situation is dire.

Throughout the ages, empires have crumbled over a policy of currency devaluation to pay their debts. The Romans, the Spanish, and the British all faced ruin over this policy of last resort. History will repeat itself.

The time has come. Our children’s and grandchildren’s futures are at risk. The fiscal conservative position has been outmaneuvered now for four years at every turn. It is time to stop worrying about a politician’s job. It is time to stop worrying about the future of the Republican party. It is time to stop worrying about what the media will say, because they will say it anyway. It is time to stop worrying about the percentage of our population who have swallowed the Marxist dream hook, line and sinker, will say.

L. Todd Wood is a contributor to The Brenner Brief. Twitter: @LToddWood

It is time to do the right thing. Perhaps a Constitutional crisis is what this country needs. We have to stop making the hole bigger. We have to stop spending money.

Right now we control one half of Congress. We can’t lead but we can prevent. We can stop digging.

We have to stand up for what we believe in. That includes less spending. Congress controls the purse, so stop spending money.

The House should pass spending bills which are in line with our principles and that balance the budget. Then, let the chips fall where they may. If the American people want to vote us out for this act of responsibility, then so be it.

Comments

I am afraid that is exactly what needs to happen before the people pull their heads out of the sand. The ironic part of all of this, is that specific cuts are always unpopular because someone has to give up some goodies they would like to keep. But if interest rates go up then everyone’s goodies will disappear. Easy cheap money is the only thing holding this economic house of cards up. And as a whole, we fit right in with Rome, Spain, and England as Snyder’s textbook “paper tiger” nation.